‘Wall-E Armed’: Midjourney Creates Videos Featuring Disney Characters in Light of Major Copyright Controversy

Midjourney has introduced a new AI video tool that can create animated clips featuring copyrighted characters from Disney and Universal, as discovered by WIRED. This includes footage of the iconic Pixar character Wall-E wielding a gun.

Midjourney has had a hectic month. Recently, the generative AI company rolled out its advanced video tool, V1, allowing users to craft short animated clips from either generated or uploaded images. However, the current iteration of Midjourney’s AI video tool relies on images as a foundation; text-only prompts for video generation are not yet available.

The launch of V1 arrives shortly after a significant announcement in June: major film studios Disney and Universal initiated a substantial lawsuit against Midjourney, claiming that it infringes copyright by producing images that incorporate the studios’ intellectual property.

Midjourney did not provide immediate feedback on the situation. Disney and Universal reaffirmed statements from their executives regarding the lawsuit, with Disney’s legal head Horacio Gutierrez accusing Midjourney’s output of being “piracy.”

It seems Midjourney may have tried to implement some video-specific restrictions for V1. During testing, animations from prompts based on Frozen’s Elsa, Boss Baby, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse were blocked, although images of these characters could still be generated. When WIRED attempted to animate images of Elsa, an “AI moderator” prevented the prompt from producing videos, stating, “AI Moderation is cautious with realistic videos, especially of people.”

These restrictions, which seem to act as guardrails, are not entirely effective. WIRED’s tests reveal that V1 can still create animated clips featuring various Disney and Universal characters, such as Homer Simpson, Shrek, Minions, Deadpool, and characters from Star Wars, including C-3PO and Darth Vader. For instance, when asked for an image of Minions eating a banana, Midjourney produced four outputs featuring recognizable versions of the charming yellow characters. When WIRED clicked “Animate” on one of the outputs, Midjourney generated a subsequent video of the characters devouring a banana—peel included.

Despite Midjourney’s apparent blocking of some Disney- and Universal-related prompts, WIRED sometimes bypassed the potential guardrails during tests by altering spellings or repeating the prompts. Additionally, Midjourney allows users to provide prompts to guide the animation; using this feature, WIRED managed to generate clips of copyrighted characters engaging in adult behavior, such as Wall-E with a firearm and Yoda using a joint.

The lawsuit from Disney and Universal presents a significant risk to Midjourney, which is also contending with further legal challenges from visual artists claiming copyright infringement. While the complaint mainly presents examples from Midjourney’s image-generation tools, it claims that video functionality would “only enhance Midjourney’s capability to distribute infringing copies, reproductions, and derivatives of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works.”

The complaint lists numerous alleged Midjourney images that feature Universal and Disney characters. This set was initially compiled as part of a report addressing Midjourney’s purported “visual plagiarism issue,” authored by AI critic and cognitive scientist Gary Marcus alongside visual artist Reid Southen.

“Reid and I highlighted this issue 18 months ago, and there has been minimal progress and little change,” states Marcus. “We are still faced with the same scenario of unlicensed materials being utilized, coupled with guardrails that function somewhat but not adequately. Despite all the discussions around rapid advancements in AI, what we observe is improved graphics rather than a fundamental solution to this problem.”